Every week, during her gymnastics class, Alysa and I get the pleasure and honor to be able to watch an Olympic Team contender. Darling (aka Darlene) Hill is 18 and has been a student at the gym that Kayla and Alysa go to. She is an amazing gymnast and such a sweet person. All the kids are mesmerized by her. What most impresses me, aside from her talent, is how much she enjoys the kids. She takes time out of her training to talk to the ones who want to talk to her. Of course, I love that she gets a kick out of how talkative Alysa is. She was so impressed one day with how well Alysa said her name, she gave her a hug. That made Alysa's day. Whenever it is gymnastics day, Alysa is not only excited to see her teacher (whom she adores), but she talks nonstop about seeing Miss Darlene as well. Whenever Alysa watches her do something on the bars or the vault, etc. She'll run after her yelling, "I can do IT!" or "My turn!"

Recently, Darling won the gold medal for both the floor and as part of the US team as a whole in California. This is an international competition which is a preliminary one for the Olympics. The Olympic try-outs are in June in Philadelphia and Darling has a really good chance at making the US team.

The girls were so excited to see Darling perform on TV when the competition was televised a couple weeks ago.

You can go here to see her perform. There are links for the vault and the floor. The CBS newscast link will take you to a recent interview that was done with her.

We are all crossing our fingers here that she makes the team for the August Olympics. The girls will be so excited to be able to watch her on TV again! I find it so cute to see how much Alysa loves her, her first idol. She couldn't have picked a better one.